Early Childhood Seminar Series 2025

Abstract:

In this seminar Emma Parangi will share her PhD research which examines how identity impacts both conceptions and enactments of leadership for Māori and Pasifika women navigating English medium ECE. Through a small group study with Māori, Samoan, Tongan and Niuean leaders, using the method of Wānanga (culturally embedded, generative discussion) the research community reflected on their relationships to one another as relatives through ancestral connections to and across Te Moana Nui a Kiwa (Pacific Ocean), and how they understand their responsibilities to one another in their roles as ECE leaders. This study joins the growing body of research centring Indigenous leadership in ECE, with the aim of elevating Indigenous understandings of ECE leadership in Aotearoa by examining the perspectives and impacts of wāhine taketake (Indigenous women of Te Moana Nui a Kiwa) in positional leadership. The key findings of this study are that these leaders understand and embody their roles as relationally created, both grounded through their ancestry, and fluid through their current communities. They navigate the current iteration of the colonial education system through mastering the complexities of neoliberal ECE, simultaneously advocating for and teaching their ancestral knowledges and lifeways. As educators and leaders, wāhine taketake understand their responsibilities to one another and to their respective knowledges and life ways, demonstrating ongoing commitment to learning from one another as the experts of our own cultures. Wāhine taketake imagine and plan for a future of early education which honours and supports Indigenous peoples. 

About the Presenter:

Kia ora, he uri ahau nō Ngāpuhi. Nō Koterana, Aerana me Ingarangi ōku tupuna. Ko Emma Parangi ahau. He ākonga me he kaiako ahau. He kaimahi au ki a Educational Leadership Project. He ākonga PhD ki a Waipapa Taumata Rau. Tēnā koutou katoa.

I am a descendant of Ngāphui, Scotland, Ireland and England. My name is Emma Parangi, and I am a teacher and a learner. I have taught in ECE for 15 years, and I am currently a Learning Facilitator with the Educational Leadership Project and a PhD student and Professional Teaching Fellow and Waipapa Taumata Rau.